Page 13 of Winter’s Heart (Three of Hearts #1)

JACOB WAS SO cold he could barely swing his leg over the seat to dismount.

For the past hour, he’d been so focused on getting them safely into town, he hadn’t registered his own discomfort.

But now they’d stopped, he sensed how close his body was to succumbing to the freezing temperatures.

But he still had a job to do and a woman to protect.

Faan , he hoped she hadn’t turned into a frozen icicle on the back of the machine.

He’d halted every ten minutes to check on her, and each time she’d stubbornly insisted she was fine, but he knew she must be at least as cold as he was.

Their best chance of survival was escaping out of the snow and into shelter, and so he’d kept going, always on the lookout for any pursuit from behind.

He’d been right about the two guys being on foot, because nothing eventuated.

Steadying himself on the slippery ground, he turned and offered a hand to Nikki, helping her to step off the machine.

She moved tentatively, testing each step before committing to placing a boot on the icy snow.

Swaying, she gripped his arm and released a hiss of pain.

Her feet were probably still sore, and this extra time out in the cold wouldn’t have helped.

At any other moment, he would’ve scooped her up in his arms like he had back in the hut, but he didn’t trust his chilled-to-the-bone legs to hold her.

Her balaclava was covered in icicles where the water vapor from her warm breath had frozen solid, and as she pulled it up, icy shards rained down the front of her suit.

“Where are we?” she asked through chattering teeth.

“At a friend’s place.” There was no designated safe house in this tiny town in the middle of northern Sweden.

The nearest secure location was in Lule?, over two hours’ drive away in good weather.

Petar would be surprised when Jacob knocked on his door, but Jacob was counting on the fact that he’d let them in with no questions asked, even though it was getting late.

“We’ll be safe here for a little while,” he added, putting an arm around her shoulder to help steady her as they made their slow way up the path toward the back door, silently thanking Petar for his diligence in keeping the way shoveled and clear of snow.

Whoever was after them might well follow their snowmobile tracks to the outskirts of Jokkmokk, but after that, he’d ridden on the recently graded dirt streets, and even on some of the bitumen roads.

The rubber tracks would be ruined, but it’d made them practically untraceable.

Barring going around and knocking on every door of every house in the town, the hitmen wouldn’t know where they were holed up. Yet.

Nikki stumbled up the last step onto the porch, and he clung more tightly to her, pulling her into his body to steady her.

Even with the bulky snowsuit on, she was small beneath his hand, her shoulders thin and shaking.

The same wave of protectiveness that’d hit him back in the hut surged through his gut again.

He wasn’t certain why, but he’d do almost anything to make sure she stayed safe.

She didn’t deserve to be targeted, not like this.

It was clear her universe had just been turned upside down, none of it her fault, but she kept going like a trooper, not giving in to despair or fatigue, and he respected her for her strength.

With his free hand, he knocked on the door. They waited for many long moments before it opened a crack, and Petar’s familiar face squinted at them through the chink.

Jacob tugged off his knit cap. “It’s me, Jacob,” he said in a low voice.

They might’ve already raised some wary watchfulness in the nearby neighboring houses by arriving on a noisy snowmobile in the dead of night; they didn’t need a loud altercation outside the house to raise any more concern.

Jacob registered surprise in his friend’s eyes for a split second, but it soon changed to genuine anxiety.

“Jacob, mate, what are you doing out there in the cold?” His astute gaze flicked to the woman nestled beneath Jacob’s arm.

He wasn’t about to offer her name, not out here where anyone might hear them.

Instead, he turned to Nikki and said, “This is Petar. He’s a good friend from my school days.

” Nikki looked up at Petar and gave a wan smile.

One look at her face and Petar’s welcoming grin shifted to a frown of consternation.

“Come in, come in. You need to get warm.” He swept the door wide open and beckoned them in, taking Nikki’s elbow when she stumbled into him.

His friend had clearly been in bed, answering the door in flannel pajamas, his dark hair sleep mussed, but he never missed a beat as he led her to a bench seat in the mudroom, bending down to help her remove her boots without even having to be asked, leaving Jacob to tend to his own gear.

He dropped his white backpack off his chest, and it landed with a thump on the floor.

It was his go-bag, containing everything he might need if he had to flee in a hurry.

Carrying the bag in front of him had given him some more, much-needed protection from the elements, as well as keeping it out of Nikki’s way.

Jacob was silently grateful that Petar was able to sense Nikki’s distress and jump right in to help.

He hoped that Petar’s current on-again-off-again girlfriend, Ingola, wasn’t sleeping over tonight.

The fewer witnesses they had, the better.

No one spoke as they disrobed, and even when Petar spotted Nikki’s swollen feet, he kept his comments to himself, for which Jacob was again appreciative.

Jacob had met Petar when they’d both been eight years old, on Jacob’s first day at the local elementary school in Jokkmokk.

Jacob had only recently moved to Sweden from America with his mother after his parents’ marriage had broken down, and was suffering severe cultural shock.

When his love-struck mom had run off to the United States to marry his father, she’d left family and tradition behind without so much as blinking an eye.

But once the relationship ended, she realized what she’d given up to follow a man across the world—the culture and traditions her kids were now missing out on—and all she wanted was to return home so Jacob and his sister, Rikka, could learn about their Sámi heritage.

At first, the siblings were appalled, struggling to fit in after leaving everything familiar and starting a new life.

Jacob had stumbled into the classroom of this unfamiliar and scary world, shaking and mute, feeling homesick and lost. But the teacher had allocated him a seat next to this tall, gangly boy, and Petar had smiled at him.

When the teacher had turned away, Petar had whispered, “Look at this.” He’d opened his mouth and proudly pushed at a wobbly tooth that was hanging on by the merest of threads.

“It’s disgusting, isn’t it? Do you want to help me pull it out at lunchtime?

” Jacob had been relieved to hear Petar speak English; most of his relatives only spoke the local dialect, and Jacob often had no idea what they were saying to him.

Jacob and Petar had been unbreakable friends ever since.

They’d stayed in touch, even after Jacob had left town to start his training as a cop, while Petar stayed and took a job at the nearby pulp mill.

Jacob’s mother still lived in Jokkmokk amongst the rest of her side of the family, and so he had plenty of reasons to come and visit, and every time he did he made sure to catch up with his best mate.

Petar had even been the one to introduce Jacob to his current girlfriend, Freya, one of Ingola’s good friends, and they had been on a couple of double dates whenever the pair visited Lule?.

Jacob winced as he thought of Freya. It was another reason he was glad Ingola wasn’t staying over tonight; he didn’t want to face her accusing stares.

Jacob was still loath to commit to Freya, even though they’d been dating for nearly a year.

But Freya had hinted that she wanted more, and Jacob had been actively avoiding the issue, and recently had even been avoiding Freya.

He’d only seen her twice in the past month, and both times had been more of a booty call than anything else.

He was acting like a dick, and he knew it; he knew Ingola would have given him a piece of her mind if she were here.

And he would deserve it. But right now, the last thing he needed was thoughts of how badly he was treating Freya screwing with his head.

Jacob glanced over to see that Petar had helped Nikki out of her boots and snowsuit and was now assisting her to her feet, taking her by the elbow to help her hobble into the kitchen, glancing back over his shoulder at Jacob with a single raised eyebrow before they disappeared through the door.

Jacob gave a weary nod of appreciation for his friend’s help, still struggling to undo the zipper on his own suit; his fingers were numb and almost useless.

At least the snowsuits kept their clothes underneath dry, so there was no need to drag off wet garments.

A few minutes later, Jacob snagged Nikki’s backpack that Petar had hung on a hook in the mudroom, along with his own, and followed them into the blessedly warm kitchen.

He found Nikki seated at a small table beneath a window, a mug of steaming hot chocolate in front of her.

She glanced up at him, blue eyes shadowed with fatigue, as he placed the bag at her feet.